PURSUE Record — FBI Photo B23: FBI · Western United States · Late 2025

FBI Photo B23 is a declassified PDF record released on May 8, 2026 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as part of the PURSUE Release 01 dataset, coordinated through the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. It documents a single still image captured by a U.S. military system in late 2025 over the Western United States. The FBI submitted this imagery to AARO after an operator reported being unable to positively identify an object in frame. The record is one of 120 PDFs in the PURSUE Release 01 filing.

What this record contains

The record is a single-part PDF originating from the FBI, covering an incident dated to late 2025 at a location described only as the Western United States — no more granular geography is disclosed in the public release. According to the official description, the FBI submitted a report of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon to AARO consisting of a still image derived from a U.S. military system. The original imagery was altered with redactions before submission, and no accompanying mission report was provided alongside it. The operator on record reported that they were unable to positively identify the object.

The official narrative description characterizes the image as monochrome with a grainy texture and a simplified central crosshair — consistent with targeting or sensor optics display formatting. A single dark, elongated object appears near the edge of the reticle, positioned to the right of center. One additional detail merits attention: the timestamp embedded in the image is noted as incorrect, attributed to the system's date and time not having been properly set. The public release does not include detailed metadata for this record beyond what is summarized here — no altitude, speed, duration of observation, or sensor system designation is provided.

Historical & documentary context

Unlike the historic FBI files in PURSUE Release 01 that trace back to the 1947–1968 investigative era — when the Bureau catalogued civilian and military UAP reports during the early Cold War — FBI Photo B23 is a contemporary submission. It reflects the FBI's more recent institutional role as a contributor to AARO's multi-agency intake process, which formally began following the establishment of AARO under the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. The mechanism here is bureaucratic and deliberate: the FBI received or possessed imagery from a military system, found it unresolved, and routed it to the appropriate federal clearinghouse. That procedural chain is itself significant, as it represents the kind of cross-agency coordination PURSUE was designed to surface.

The imagery characteristics described — monochrome, reticle overlay, grainy texture — are consistent with forward-looking infrared (FLIR), night-vision, or electro-optical targeting systems commonly mounted on military aircraft or ground platforms. These systems are optimized for contrast differentiation rather than high-resolution color fidelity, which means elongated or ambiguous shapes are a known artifact of the imaging physics. The incorrect system timestamp noted in the record is a mundane but operationally meaningful detail: it complicates any attempt to cross-reference the imagery against other sensor tracks, flight logs, or radar data from the same timeframe.

What this does and does not prove

What is documented: a U.S. military sensor captured an elongated object that a trained operator could not identify; the FBI found the case sufficiently unresolved to submit it formally to AARO; and the imagery was redacted before leaving the originating agency's custody. What is not documented — and should not be inferred — is any determination about the object's nature, origin, performance characteristics, or significance. "Unresolved" is a filing status, not an analytical conclusion. The absence of a mission report means there is no corroborating context in the public record about what the platform was doing, where it was precisely, or whether other sensors were active. The redactions further limit independent analysis. Readers should treat this record as an open case file, not a finding.

How it fits PURSUE Release 01

FBI Photo B23 sits within the FBI-originated thread of PURSUE Release 01 — a subset that spans from postwar-era investigative memos to, in this case, a contemporary AARO submission routed through the Bureau. Its inclusion alongside Department of War mission sensor videos and NASA archival imagery underscores the release's stated purpose: to demonstrate analytical discipline across the full spectrum of case types, resolved and unresolved alike. For readers tracking the FBI contribution to the broader PURSUE dataset, this record illustrates that the FBI's UAP-adjacent work did not end with the Cold War — it has simply changed form, from field investigation reports to multi-agency sensor intake.

Editorial note: This analysis is independent commentary on a publicly released document. The original record, source links, and full release metadata are catalogued on the SkyLens UAP files page alongside every other case in the PURSUE Release 01 set.